Mike Watt, San Pedro’s venerable gift to punk rock, takes us around town to eat at Busy Bee, talk about the 'econo' way of living, music and more.
The line is already a dozen people deep at 10 a.m. on a Monday when the Busy Bee, a sandwich shop that’s been serving San Pedro for over 40 years, opens its doors. The small crowd is a cross-section of Pedroites: a young mother and son; two contractors waiting in their truck; a guy with a Realtor vibe in a midrange suit; a cop; and Mike Watt, San Pedro’s venerable gift to punk rock.
We pay for our sandwiches and walk across the street to Watt’s van. The Ford Econoline is central to the tenets of econo; it’s even the namesake of the whole thing. In Watt-speak, it’s “the boat.” He has his own argot, a stew of maritime slang , ’50s hipster and pure invention. “Chow” is food, to “konk” is to sleep, a “hell-ride” is a rough tour, the “thunder broom” is the bass, a “square john” is a normie. After an hour with him, you find yourself unselfconsciously speaking his language.
As a transplant from the Philadelphia/New York megalopolis, I am an insufferable snob regarding meat-centric meals conveyed inside Italian-style rolls. The Busy Bee comes very close to my ancestral standards. The roll is more about chewiness and less about crustiness — an essential detail that many places get wrong. The roast pork is buttery, with charred edges on each chunk. Watt’s stripped-down version is deliciously unsubtle, a muscle car of a sandwich.
Back inland, we nose into an alley off 19th Street, where Watt stops for a moment, leans over me and points to the second story of an unassuming multi-unit building. “That window on the corner, that’s where the Minutemen started. That was D. Boon’s bedroom.” FIREHOSE lasted until 1994, at which point Watt embarked on a solo and gun-for-hire career that has seen him release a steady stream of albums, including three semiautobiographical rock operas, and cover the bottom end for the Stooges, J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., Jane’s Addiction and, most recently, sludgy-punk progenitors Flipper. He even played bass on a Kelly Clarkson record.
As for stocking the van with food? “Crackers and ’dines!” he says. “Those tins never go bad, so it’s no prob in the boat on tour. I dig the ones with mustard and we use chili sauce to spike them up. It was a trip when I found out the Stooges dug them too! Much respect to them.”
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